Jagged Mountain Craft Brewery comes out strong

Jagged Mountain’s Wayne Burns (left) and RJ Banat at the new brewery at 20th and Lawrence.

For years, Wayne Burns hauled cases of strong beer around as he moved from place to place, like a rolling cellar. He had amassed quite a collection as an award-winning brewer in his home state of Michigan, and later in Colorado.

Those dusty bottles came in handy when he and two business partners were selling the idea of Jagged Mountain Craft Brewery to potential investors. Here, he would say, try this 2003 bottle of 22 percent alcohol-by-volume imperial stout aged in a Heaven Hill whiskey barrel.

This, he told investors, is the kind of uncommonly strong beer that will distinguish us in a crowded field of craft breweries.

The sales pitch worked. After a long road of fundraising that included a (narrowly) successful Kickstarter campaign, Jagged Mountain opened Saturday in a central location just three blocks from Coors Field with a couple of Burns’ old ales on draft.

Jagged Mountain is a venture of three longtime friends from Michigan who met playing volleyball and share a love for climbing and the outdoors – Burns, finance manager RJ Banat and operations manager Randy Stinson.

Their slogan: “adventurous people making adventurous beers.” The brewery, at 20th and Lawrence in what essentially was a stable for horse-drawn carriages, is operating on a 10-barrel brewing system with a 1-barrel pilot.

Jagged Mountain had hoped to open during baseball season or in time for the Great American Beer Festival. When it got a temporary certificate of occupancy on Friday, the owners posted on Facebook that they would open at noon Saturday.

Few new breweries can boast a head brewer with a resume rivaling Burns’. He was educated at Chicago’s Siebel Institute of Technology and Doemens Academy outside Munich, and worked at a handful of Michigan breweries including the famed Bell’s.

Burns’ big-beer reputation really took off at Kuhnhenn Brewing Co. in Warren, Mich. Burns found whenever he brewed strong beers between 12 and 18 percent ABV, they sold out. In 2010, his Fourth Dementia Olde Ale, at 13.6 percent, pulled off a stunning double, winning gold at both the Great American Beer Festival and the World Beer Cup.

That beer – sought-after by collectors – is the inspiration for Jagged Mountain’s Descent old ales. Less than a keg each of two variations were on tap Saturday, at 13 and 14 percent, respectively, fermented with different yeast strains. Burns used spirals to get wood character in the beer because there was no time to barrel-age in time for opening (a portion of the brewery will be dedicated to a barrel-aging program).

Jagged Mountain opened with nine beers on tap, but two old ales kicked fast (Eric Gorski, The Denver Post)

Under Brewers Association guidelines, an old ale or strong ale is copper-red to very dark in color with very low hop aroma and bitterness, a malty and sometimes caramel-like sweetness and a rich, complex and wine-like character from aging.

“I don’t want the beer to be alcoholic or hot,” said Burns, who also brewed for Mountain Sun at Vine Street Pub in Denver. “I want to be able to carry that alcohol content very pleasantly. I want them to be enjoyable. The key is they have a balance.”

He said Jagged Mountain believes such beers can fill a niche not heavily served, with Avery Brewing in Boulder being one of the few breweries anywhere consistently brewing that big.

Those small-batch beers are calling cards, but they can’t carry the day. The opening menu also features an American-style IPA, a saison, a Scotch ale, Belgo-American black IPA and a double IPA. As a “training-wheel” beer, the brewery chose a low-alcohol saison instead of a more conventional wheat or pilsner.

That could prove challenging 81 days a year when the Rockies are in town and the foot traffic in the vicinity is not of the beer-geek variety.

Banat, another one of the owners, said Jagged Mountain is financed through the owners’ own money, a Small Business Administration Loan, outside investors and the Kickstarter campaign. The brewery had only raised $6,000 toward its $25,000 goal with 48 hours remaining, then ended up surpassing it by $800.

“We do want to be interesting, but we also want to be accessible to people,” Banat said. “We were trying to do something that is different and unique. There are so many breweries in Denver. What makes us different? We hope our location, and we hope to have some big beers consistently on hand.”

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